Narcissism

 

Subject: Narcissism

"And tell me about yourself".
Some people thrive on speaking about themselves, it is the one subject they are conversant with and in all honesty the one they are most interested.
Others see in their lives so little of importance that trivia springs to mind as they battle with understanding events outside their competence to do anything about but which fascinates them as if it were an extra skin which keeps itching.
To live within yourself and be absorbed by your actions and the effect they have on others is to boarder on the narcissistic, but it is common. The feeling of self importance, the need for admiration and the lack of feeling for another's feelings is a trait we could describe for most people, even ourselves. In our own individualistic bubble we see and hear our own voice and feel our own frustrations. It's an echo chamber constantly sending out signals of our own self worth and waiting for a response to confirm our idea.
'The alternative'.To be constantly probing what is going on outside our own environment  interested in people in so far as they are part of a larger stage than our own domestic set and fascinating because, whilst they reflect what makes for your own significance they provide a backdrop for understanding our 'actual' insignificance.
Without information, without context, without empathy, our understanding is trivial. Our lives are subordinate to triviality which, whilst important for the minute has no long term consequence in finding a better understanding as to why we are here and why we behave as we do.
We could reach for religion or a philosophical analysis made by others but it seems to me to be too much 'the consumerist' within us, buying the tin in which we assume we will find the answer, and maybe the satisfaction.
Give me a clean sheet of paper any day to make my own squiggles, to process my own thoughts no matter how inconsequential than to become embedded in someone else's concept of right and wrong, good and bad, important and unimportant.
Perhaps it's only another form of narcissism.